


Dream

by WeAllFlyHigh



Series: Duplicate [6]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Bad Parenting, Childhood Trauma, Gen, chronologically first in the series, cloning, explanation of trigger warnings inside, some gore/body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:35:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26414281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WeAllFlyHigh/pseuds/WeAllFlyHigh
Summary: It’s always the things you don’t expect that really leave an impact. Or to be exact, it’s coming in contact with that unexpected thing that changes you.They aren’t supposed to just happen and leave you hollowed out and raw.
Series: Duplicate [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1580686
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	Dream

**Author's Note:**

> If surgery, organ harvesting, and blood bothers you; you might want to skip this one.  
> Most of it is between the lines "Mathew chocked as his stomach heaved." and "Mathew’s head swam."

It’s always the things you don’t expect that really leave an impact. Or to be exact, it’s coming in contact with that unexpected thing that changes you.

You’d think life changing moments are supposed to have signs predating them, warnings that you can at the very least look back upon and realize that all of it had been building up to a climax. There should be odd coincidences. You should be able to taste it in the air. Or you could just know that they’re coming as easily as you flick on the lights as you wake up.

They aren’t supposed to just happen and leave you hollowed out and raw.

The horderves clung to the roof of Mathew’s mouth. He shared an identical look of disdain with his brother. This was the worst company party they’ve been to in a while and they had perpetually been at them for the last year or so. Lately, half of the parties had tolerable and most of them were at least somewhat boring. But this grievous outlier was just awful.

The music was so old and slow no one seemed to be enjoying it. No one was dancing. All everyone seemed to be doing was talking about the driest of subjects or trying to avoid talking by shoving dry cheeses into their mouths. The food was awful.

They blamed, reluctantly on Mathew’s part, their new minder for some of this. She hadn’t learned how to locate the best snacks yet. Or she wasn’t trying. Mathew chose to believe she just wasn’t good at it yet.

Their previous minder, their nanny really, never would have given them something that was simultaneously fried and gooey all at the same time. And he always had a great collection of comics and party games in his briefcase, and party games being, of course, relatively quiet games for them to play at adult parties. Unfortunately, he was a child development expert focused on early childhood and the brothers were going to be teenagers in a few years. So, he has been replaced.

They had tried to tell their parents that this wasn’t necessary. They liked Dave and Dave liked them. But Dr. Navient had too many PHDs and whatever qualified her for running a finishing school for them to win that argument.

So here they were, at possibly the worst party ever with scratchy shirt collars and nearly overwhelming levels of boredom. Mathew tugged gently on Dr Navient’s pants leg. She looked down, registered his hair cut, and said in a cold voice, “Mathew, do you remember what I said about pulling on people?”

Heat ran up Mathew’s neck. His lips twitched as he fought back the urge to bit them. She had warned him about that and would only get colder if he defended himself. It wasn’t like he meant to be rude, it was just a habit for him. Dave hadn’t minded if they touched him without saying ‘excuse me, Doctor’ first.

Before Mathew could figure out how to apologize and get as little of a repeat lecture as possible, Dr Navient continued. “Your brother doesn’t have any problems with this rule. What are you not understanding?”

The worst part about Dr Navient was that she really meant what she said. She truly expected Mathew to be able to articulate perfectly what his problem was. But he didn’t have a problem and she hadn’t realized that the reason Alfred had no issue with the rule was that he was refusing to talk in front of her, let alone touch her. No one but Mathew had noticed yet. Alfred was still a chatterbox every night when their parents got home and Dr Navient had left.

She stared down at him waiting. “I’m sorry Dr Navient. It won’t happen again.” He knew it probably would and the frown on her face made it clear that she believed so too. “I need to go to the bathroom.”

Her lips thinned as she nodded crisply, such bodily functions were clearly below her. She walked away. Mathew hurried to follow her. Alfred followed a few steps behind him. She spoke to a caterer who led them to a door.

“It’s down this hallway, the first door on the left.” Mathew nodded and started down the empty hallway. Dr Navient frowned but didn’t stop Alfred from following. She waited on the other side of door.

As Mathew dried his hands Alfred made a noise at the back of his throat. Mathew looked at his brother’s reflection and it grinned back at him. “Wanna have some fun?”

Mathew blew a curl away from his face. “I don’t think that’s possible here.”

“Not back at the party but…” Alfred wiggled his eyebrows.

“But what?”

“I saw another door.”

Mathew kept his face smooth and free of any hint of a smile. He carefully watched his brother’s face. “Was it the woman’s room?”

Mathew laughed as Alfred reared back. “Eww no, Mattie! A different door, past that one.” His grin returned. “Wanna check it out?”

“It’s probably locked if it’s anything interesting.”

Alfred wrapped himself around Mathew’s arm. He leaned his head onto his brother’s cheek. Mathew couldn’t’ resist smiling just a little. He liked how they looked in the mirror. Pressed this close, if he squinted his eyes, he could merge their reflections into one golden haired boy with an uneven haircut and mismatched eyes.

“But we won’t know unless we take a look,” Alfred said.

Mathew’s head tilted to the side as he thought about it. This party sucked. The food was terrible. There was nobody their age here. And Dr Navient sure wasn’t going to help them. Even a closet of cleaning supplies would be an improvement. “Dr Navient won’t be happy.”

“May haps the good doctor will be a bit perturbed,” Alfred said with as if he was a Victorian era English orphan, “but don’t you think Mom will be even more unhappy if she can’t even keep track of two preteens during a bathroom break?” Alfred grinned. “She might even fire her.”

“That’s mean Alfred.”

“And that’s not a no.”

“Just a little look,” Alfred cheered and quickly quieted down when Mathew pointed at the door leading back to the party. They slunk further down to the mysterious third door. It didn’t budge when they tried it. But Alfred didn’t give up. He reached into his pocket and withdrew something that looked like a round piece of metal. He pressed it over the keyhole.

Mathew frowned down at it. “Al where did you get that?”

Alfred shrugged as the tiny device let out a soft whirling noise. “Artie gave it to me.”

“No, he didn’t.”

“How do you know that?”

“He wouldn’t give you a lockpick.”

“Did you ask him for one?” Mathew rolled his eyes in reply. “Then how would you know?”

Mathew pouted as Alfred smirked. He still didn’t believe his brother, not one bit, no one sane would. But he hadn’t asked, and Dr Kirkland was different than most adults. Maybe he would have let Mathew have a lockpick too. Afterall, there wasn’t anywhere at home that they were forbidden to go anyways, except their mother’s office and that was boring anyways. Maybe he thought giving Alfred a lockpick would keep him from all the mischief he seemed determined to cause lately.

A slight click came from the lockpick. It was only audible due to the empty silence in the hallway.

The boys moved quickly, opening the door, as Alfred slipped the lockpick back into his pocket. Behind the door was a spiral staircase descending several levels. Mathew peered over the railing, trying to see how far it went. “Hey Mattie,” Alfred said as he hosted himself up to sit on the railing, “going down?”

Mathew ran his hands along the railing. It was perfectly polished, slick enough to slide down but with enough resistance for him to still remain in control. He smiled as he pulled himself up behind Alfred. They’d been doing this for years and had it down to a science. Their stifled giggles echoed all the way down.

After several flights Alfred hoped off. Mathew scrambled down after him. Alfred went back up to last floor they had passed.

“Time to go back,” Mathew asked. They could go farther but the downside to sliding down stairways was always the climb back up.

“No. Did you see this door?”

“Yeah. I’ve seen every door we’ve passed.”

“But look at this one. The buttons are all worn down.” They were so well worn that he could barely make out any of the numbers.

Mathew tisked like their father always did and said, “Unseemly.”

“I know right.” Truthfully the boys didn’t know what was unseemly about having worn down buttons, only that their parents didn’t like it and they never had anything that was worn at all. All the company’s labs had only brand new and sparkling equipment. 

Alfred produced the lock pick once again and stepped inside after it was done.

In the future Mathew would wish that they hadn’t gone in. He’d wish they sneaked in video games or played tick tack toe in the condiments on their plates. He’d wish Dave had been with them. He’d wish someone had explained everything to him beforehand.

Or maybe it wouldn’t have made any difference how he found out. All he knew was that he didn’t like how things actually went. It didn’t have to be this bad.

There was a lab on the other side of the door. They’d been in plenty of labs before. Their dad had taken them on a few tours of the company’s facilities and shown them off to the managers. And, of course, there was Dr Kirkland’s lab that they regularly visited for checkups and doctors’ visits.

This one was a little different. It looked straight out of their comic books. Wires ran in every direction. There was a big screen with all sorts of numbers and graphs that rose and fell as Mathew looked on.

They stood on a platform that encircled a room below. Some of the largest glass tubes he had ever seen lined the walls. Each one was accompanied by a data pad with pulsing lines. He saw bubbles move through the green liquid and moved closer. There was something inside. He stood right in front of one and peered inside. One of his hands touched the glass.

There was a man inside. He looked a lot like the man his parents came here to meet, except this man’s hair was all wrong and he wasn’t as fat. Mathew looked into the next tube. The man in there looked a lot like the first but was clearly someone he had never seen before. The nose was completely different. Maybe they were related. The mans eyelids twitched. Mathew jumped back.

“Hey Al,” Mathew whispered. When he received no response, he looked away from the tubes. His brother stood on the opposite side of the platform. He was staring down at something below. He was so still it was almost like he wasn’t even breathing. The taping of his fingers against his leg was the only movement he made. He didn’t so much as flinch as Mathew came to his side.

He could smell chemicals wafting up from below from here.

Before he looked down, Mathew looked at his brother. He’d never seen him so intense, so utterly consumed by the sight before him. His fingers still twitched keeping a rhythm, Mathew realized, that he could not hear. Mathew followed his brothers’ eyes.

He shouldn’t have.

People swarmed like flies around a table. They wore suits that hid every inch of skin and helmets with visors that looked like an oil slick of water. The longer Mathew watched them the more insectoid they looked. Their arms moved around the table, their instruments flashing silver with every flick. In the center of the table…

Mathew chocked as his stomach heaved.

He hadn’t dreamed he would ever see something like this. It reminded him of every horror movie he had ever seen but in a way that made him think that they would never compare. They had gotten it all wrong. The blood didn’t flow over the table or spray onto their faces. Instead it largely pooled beneath the body and dripped from the instruments darting to and from the body. Each time a scientist laid their hand down they painted large streaks.

The man, the body, on the table was cracked open. His ribs gleamed white under a thin sheen of red. Periodically his innards would, one part setting off a chain reaction that made it all move like a wave. His lungs rose and his heart quivered.

Thu- thump. Pause. Thu-thump. Pause. Thu-thump. Pause.

Alfred’s fingers tapped as he kept time with the pulse.

Mathew’s head swam. He swayed. He caught a flash of blue as Alfred looked at him. Cool fingers touched his forehead. Mathew closed his eyes to focus on them. 

They missed it.

All of a sudden, the quiet operating room burst into sound. Instruments clattered down. The scientists scattered. Someone clumsily pulled a sheet over the man. The edge of it dipped into his chest cavity.

Alfred grabbed his hand as the shouting started. They ran. Their footsteps crashed on the steps. His head rang.

“Mattie,” Alfred yanked them to a stop. “Mattie, can you cry?” Mathew’s shoulder throbbed. Alfred shook him. “You have to start crying.” He did not start to cry. Alfred’s lips twisted downwards. He pinched Mathew’s arm and twisted the skin between his fingers. “Cry.” He obeyed.

Alfred threw his arms around him and pulled them both down. Mathew’s breath shuttered. They crouched on the floor of the stairwell. Alfred tucked his face into Mathew’s hair. His shoulders began to shake but Mathew couldn’t feel any tears landing on him.

Someone was yelling. A sob shook through Mathew’s body. Their father was yelling. “What in the world do you think you’re doing?” Mathew wanted to say something, anything to defend themselves.

They didn’t mean to do it. They hadn’t broken any rules. They hadn’t done anything wrong. What had happened in that lab, whatever it was that was happening, that was wrong. He knew it in his gut. People didn’t act like that unless they were doing something wrong. They didn’t’ do anything wrong. They were just bored. And it wasn’t even the first time they had wandered off. They didn’t think they would…They didn’t think.

He couldn’t stop thinking about how that body had moved. That man, that man had been alive. And they just stood above him and cut down and took… Alfred’s fingers clutched his arms.

“You have no room to criticize me. Everything here is legal, perfectly up to code.” A voice, their hosts voice, answered his father. “You have one yourself right there.”

Alfred squeezed him harder and Mathew looked up. Their host had a thick finger pointing at them. No, he realized as he blinked away tears, he wasn’t pointing at them. He was pointing at Mathew.

“If anything, isn’t what you’re doing inhumane? Dragging that thing about?” Mathew chocked on a sob.

“George,” his mother’s voice cut through the racket. Her heels clanged on the steps as she approached. Her deep blue dress appeared to block everything else from Mathew’s view. She lowered a dainty hand down. Alfred took it and pulled them both up. He rubbed his hands along Mathew’s cheeks before squeezing his hand. Their mother spoke as if the chaos around her did not exist. “It’s getting late. Our sons need their sleep. We’re leaving.” On the last sentence, her voice dropped to the tone she used when she was talking to the help and she was _disappointed_.

His father’s face was all red as he nodded. They left with a crowd of party goers watching their every step. Dr Navient trailed behind them like she was afraid to be left behind. Mathew thought, somewhere in a distant part of his mind, that if she heard mother’s tone of voice, then she really should have chosen to stay.

His parents were silent as the doors to the mansion shut behind them. The cooling night air felt soothing on his tear tracked face. Their father’s foot tapped impatiently on the pavement as their car was brought around. 

When the car arrived, Dr Navient peeled Alfred from Mathew’s side. Their mother’s eyes narrowed but she didn’t’ say a word. As they got in the car, she tucked one child each to her sides. Their father sat on the opposing seat as far from the doctor as possible. He tilted his chin upwards and looked determinedly out the window.

His mother reached over Mathew’s head and the divider slid up to separate them from the driver. Then she started screaming at Dr Navient. Their father would occasionally chime into her rant with a well-placed grunt.

Mathew tried to stifle his lingering sniffles. He didn’t say a word the lockpick. Nor did he mention how mean the doctor was or how she wasn’t responsible for what they had seen. He only tried to look his brother. But his mother never moved enough for him to see beyond her. He didn’t even hear a sound from the other side of the car.

When they got home, their parents went into the office with Dr Navient and they were sent to bed without another word.

In morning, the boys slept in. They woke up on their own and got dressed alone. Mathew discovered as he pulled on his shirt that he had bruises from Alfred’s fingers. They were served pancakes from their unusually pale chef. Dr Navient was gone, and their parents were still shut away in the office. When they emerged for lunch, Dr Kirkland came out too.

He ran his hands over the boys’ hair. He pulled Alfred closer to him and leaned down ever so slightly. “If you ever have questions,” he whispered, “don’t hesitate to ask me.”

No one explained it directly to Mathew, but he came to understand just what he had seen from overheard snatches of conversations.

He’d always known that he and his brother were different. They had different colored eyes and Mathew didn’t like pizza crusts while Alfred always started eating them first. The fact that his brother was his clone had never been any more important than which colors they preferred.

But, he’d come to realize, not everyone saw them they way he did. Clones weren’t really people to everyone.

He wondered if Dr Navient thought that way. She would have been told which of them was which. Is that why she never questioned why Alfred never spoke to her? Did she assume he couldn’t? Did she see him as only a shallow reflection of him, incapable of thoughts of his own? Did she think he was only a sack of meat able to follow him around?

How many other people thought like that?

Mathew had never been more aware of the differences between them.

Alfred wasn’t acting like himself. He was refusing to say anything to anyone. And Mathew wasn’t sure if anyone else had noticed yet. His parents, in the few hours they were actually home, were locked away in the office chained to their phones and laptops. Dr Kirkland hadn’t come by and Dave hadn’t returned.

Alfred and Mathew were left virtually alone in the house. They bundled themselves downstairs and watched old movies. The biggest reaction, the only sign that Alfred gave that he was still himself, was when a ghost would appear on screen and Alfred would tremble.

There was only so much silence Mathew could take. After several days of waiting for Alfred to say something, anything, he decided to take action. He had waited all day and there never seemed to be a good time, so created one that night. He turned over in his bed and watched Alfred’s chest rise and fall across the room. He hadn’t yet fallen asleep. He took a deep breath and squeezed his stuffed animal to his chest.

“Alfie,” he whispered. “Are you ok?” He listened for an answer. He heard only breathing. Maybe this was mistake. Maybe Alfred just needed more time. Or maybe he shouldn’t have called him Alfie. Alfred had been telling him to stop calling him that for years. “I love you.”

As sleep began to pull on Mathew’s eyelids, Alfred moved. He slipped out of his own bed and came to his bedside. Mathew lifted the covers for him. Alfred climbed in and pressed his toes to Mathew’s shins.

“Do you think they can dream?”

This was an important question. Mathew didn’t know exactly how it was important. But it was. He could only hope he answered it right. He reached out, keeping his eyes on his brothers, and squeezed his hand. “I don’t know.”

“I had a dream last night.” Alfred rolled over to stare up at glowing stars on their ceiling. “I was a space man.”

"Like Neil Armstrong?”

“No. I was the one they found when they went up.”

Like an alien, was Mathew’s first thought. Were you a good alien? Were you green? Did you come bearing a message of world peace or laser guns? But he stopped those questions from coming out. They weren’t important. “Was it fun?”

Alfred giggled and pressed closer to him until they were breathing in each other’s air. “So much fun.”

**Author's Note:**

> You know how great it is when a fic practically writes itself :)  
> Anyways this


End file.
